Management Craft

Where Disproportionate Responses Come From

Managers describe team members as being high-maintenance, their teams as high-drama, and their discontented employees and high-sensitive. When I ask for particulars - specifics - I notice that they are often complaining about disproportionate responses.

What are disproportionate responses? They are reactions that don't seem to fit the response.

• Like a woman who blows up at a cashier who drops her quarter change.
• Like the MANY political ads.
• Like the team member that believes his or her manager is out to get him or her (this is rarely the case).
• Like the team that bands together to complain about a manager who is implementing new accountability systems (this really happened) and saying that she is mean and unfit to manage.

You get the idea. The question I like to explore is WHY do people respond in ways that seem disproportionate? What's going on? Each situation is unique but here are a few common catalysts:

• Control - or fear of loss of control. At the heart of control issues are confidence issues.
• A lack of love - when people feel unimportant and unloved.
• Groupthink - this is behind many of the political ads, I think. Together we spin tales into movements into today's truths. (Groupthink is a disproportionate amount of connection)
• Disconnection - I will be more likely to respond in a way that seems out of whack if I don't feel connected. Connection builds perspective and interest.
• Learned incompetence - this is too common and occurs when groups get good at circumvention, sabotage, and end up holding themselves to a very low standard of team performance.

As a manager, you can impact many of these catalysts and reduce their power and impact. Instead of playing the victim and calling out these behaviors and then stopping, dig further, ask a few questions and get things moving in the right direction. See things for what they are and resist the urge to have your own disproportionate responses (managers freak out too). In return you will enjoy more high-independence, high-adaptable, high-satisfaction team members.

It's Not Just My Mood - But My Theme, My Title Song, My Apparent Obsession - Personal Reinvention

I have been working on a project every now and then for a couple of years. An hour here, an afternoon there. It is something I have been meaning to do.

I am putting together a collection of the "best of" posts for Management Craft. This August, this wee blog will begin its 9th year. That is nearly a gazillion in internet years. And in the 8 years I have been blogging, a few predictable tones and hues keep popping up. I would not have seen this so clearly had I not taken on this project.

BTW, one reason why I have not done this sooner is that 8 years is a long time and I have done thousands of posts. I downloaded a complete backup of the blog as a Word document and it was 6,000 pages long. Really. I took one look at that and concluded it would take me another 8 years to find and sift through all my posts.

So I abandoned the project due to overwhelm.

From time to time, I thought about other ways to approach it. A friend suggested focusing on only the last 3 years since one would assume that my writing has improved and therefore the best posts are recent ones. Buoyed by this idea, I went to the 6,000 page document and whacked off the first 5 years. Much better, but still over 1,000 pages long.

So I abandoned the project due to overwhelm.

A week ago I went for a 3 mile walk around Memorial Park here in Houston. It was early in the morning but still very hot. My mind was drifting and feeling fuzzy and I think I started hallucinating part way through because this "best of" book seeped into my brain and would not leave.

Eureka! I thought of a way to find the best posts and get this thing rolling. At last I did not feel overwhelmed.

I am doing the final massaging of the collection and figuring out what it will all look like. I have picked only those posts that I think have the potential to be game changers for readers. Not all of them for all people all the time, but the posts that are catalytic in some way.

There are about 70 posts that I am including. 70 unique posts that feel like they belong together. They feel the same even though the messages run the gamut. They are kin. They are all about personal reinvention. I did not seek to pick 70 posts about personal reinvention, I picked the 70 posts that I felt were my best and it turns out that they all touch on this theme. Geared toward managers, sure, but about how we constantly hone who we are to make something happen.

Apparently I am obsessed with this idea of reinvention even though I had not recognized this. Today I got an email from a reader relating to yesterday's post that said, "Lisa, you are writing the most wonderful, pure-pursuit messages for real living these days. Thank you. My hat's off to you!!" Thanks Allan, I guess I am still singing the same tune.

BTW #2: Once I noticed the underlying theme of personal reinvention, the title for the collection popped right into my head. It will be called,

Never-Ending New Beginnings:  A Manifesto on Personal Impact

The Very Best from the Management Craft Blog 2004-2012

What do you think? It ties in with my personal logo, you can see that here. I will let you know once I have the best of collection loaded up into Lulu.com and available. I am self-publishing this one because it is a labor of celebration more than anything. Not something I want to hand over to a publisher's red editing pen.

A bit of irony: Given the size of the archive I selected the posts from, this book - arguably the easiest one to write because the posts were already written - has taken longer and more work than the books I have written from scratch.

Another bit of irony: This collection holds together better than many of my books that have been planned, plotted, outlined, and vetted from the beginning. Perhaps our spontaneous mind is the most ordered.

Because I have this blog, I can easily - well not easily - look back and see my patterns. See my themes. See the tune I sing the most. The idea that I return to and practice. My fellow blogger pal Dick Richards wrote a great book Is Your Genius at Work several years ago. In the book he helps you discover your driving force and then use it. Perhaps this process has helped clarify that for me. You might try it checking out this book, as my process takes too long! Funny, even though I have typed his name dozens of times over the years I am just now noticing that he has two of the same names - Richard Richard. I digress.

And since I am digressing, I highly - HIGHLY - recommend this TED talk from Elizabeth Gilbert (author of the mega best-seller Eat, Pray Love). In her talk, she asks and answers the question about how one should approach her work when her most successful creation is likely behind her. It is a wonderful way to look at personal creativity and how we can approach our work in ways that battle our self-imposed barriers. I have watched this talk many times and still love it. And, yes, it is about personal reinvention.

Acting Without Self-Consciousness - My Ongoing Experiment

A few weeks ago I wrote about the idea of authenticity and how acting without self-consciousness was at the heart of it. Since then, I have been experimenting with the idea of self-consciousness. I have been:

• Noticing when self-consciousness occurs.
• I have been testing ways to talk myself away from feeling self-conscious.
• And I have been noticing my results.

Here is my conclusion. This is more powerful and simple than I would have imagined. Let's start with the simple part - noticing self-consciousness.

The feeling of being self-conscious comes up as we are planning to do something or just getting started. They are those little thoughts that trail into our minds and create worry, fret, or apprehension. Many of these thoughts have some merit and many do not. But even those with some logical basis might not be helpful. Here is a rather graphic example that I bet we can all relate to:

• Action: Signing up for a Pilates or Yoga class.
• Self-conscious thought: Worrying about passing gas.

Face it, when bending one's body into pretzel-like shapes, the likelihood of provoking the release of gas is higher. This worry has merit especially if you have consumed foods and drinks that cause gas.

At work, similar situations occur. Prior to a meeting, or during it, we might feel a tinge of self-consciousness before deciding whether to bring up a difficult topic. You might be judged, shot down, or get an unfavorable response from the boss. It could happen! It does happen!

And we all pass gas. So we should not do the Pilates?

No, that would be a cop out and inauthentic to our intentions.

Notice. Choose. Move forward.

When we notice these human moments we enable ourselves to make some choices. Sometimes we will hold back. If we can talk ourselves through the apprehension, new things are possible.

It is not all about talk. We can take actions to reduce the feared negative outcome. We can change our diets prior to the Pilates class. And we can prepare more fully for the meeting. We can think about how we might say something so it is heard as we intend it.

Over that last several weeks I have been noticing when I have thoughts of self-consciousness and making the choice to talk myself out of the fear and take action that moves me forward. I have done this at least a few dozen times and I am very pleased with the results. I might need to remind myself (often repeating the mantra, "without self-consciousness, without self-consciousness") a few times to stay in action, but it works. It really works.

I invite you to notice your moments of self-consciousness and get through them at least some of the time. As a manager, there are many aspects of your work that will provoke self-doubt. It is natural. But being authentic means that we are willing to act consistently with our intentions without self-consciousness.

BTW: I am not suggesting that we disable our filters. This is not a post about being irresponsible and immature (which is the definition of having no filters). Acting without self-consciousness is about removing our self-imposed barriers to manifesting our intentions.

Repeat the mantra if that helps. "Without self-consciousness, without self-consciousness.."

One more observtion. People notice us less than we think. People think about us less than we think. Most of our little worries are silly because no one is paying attention. You are not the only one at the Pilates class who worries about passing gas. And when you do - and we all will at some point - it will be no big deal. We will not have to leave the class in shame. The earth will not start spinning in a different direction. This I know for sure.

He's not trying to annoy you, that is just the way he breathes.

Think about styles and preferences a bit differently and you will enjoy working with people a whole lot more. It is so easy to get perturbed with people. It is easy to assume that people are trying to frustrate us, make things difficult for us. It is a piece of cake to render a judgment about another person's motives and intent.

The kicker is that while it is easy to respond to people in these ways, we are often wrong. And it is a cop out.

I used to let styles really get to me. And I am not perfectly cured of it. But I am better ad happier and more successful because I truly believe that how we are - not who we are, HOW we are - is something that is so comfortable that it is like how we breathe.

So instead of taking on an assumption that has a high likelihood of being wrong, repeat after me: " she's not trying to annoy me, that is just the way she breathes."

I am not suggesting that we all don't need to learn how to be better partners and I am not excusing bad behavior. My suggestion is to be more choosy about what we classify and the assumptions we have about how people act and communicate.

Most people are smart, hard-working, and well meaning - even if they are frustrating to work with at times. BTW - you are likely smart, hard-working and well meaning AND frustrating to work with at times.

It's just the way you breathe.

No need (or value in) to be snarky....

I had this rather longish post all cued up but then decided not to publish it. The post was a snarky rant post. I figure that even though my points might be valid and the rant deserved, the world does not need more negative energy.

In fact, it needs the opposite. That old addage could be polished off:

If you can't think of anything positively energizing to say, don't say anything at all.

That is my mantra for managers this week. Be the bright spot. Here's my positive wee bit:

Never underestimate the power of overestimating another person's amazingness. When I see the light in you, you see it clearer. Managers, you are in luck - you are in the best position to light up other people. And doing so is fun.

So before you render your opinion, positive or a rant/concern/criticism, ask a question that shows your interest (BTW: be interested). How about this one: "I would love to hear how you would approach this situation if I told you the only parameter is that we need a game changer."